Biggest failures

1998 Kansas men's basketball team
Coming off the choke job the year before and still with Pierce and LaFrentz (who actually was a very good college player despite being a stiff in the NBA). They get a #1 seed again, win their first round NCAA game by like 60 points....then lose in the next round to freakin' Rhode Island in OT.

1997 Wake Forest men's basketball
Reached the Elite 8 the year before, returned Tim Duncan for his senior year and were ranked #2 preseason. Finished 24-7 and lost in the second round of the NCAAs to Stanford.

2004 Lakers
Shaq, Kobe, Payton, Malone...4 future Hall of Famers, and they get their asses kicked in the NBA Finals by a far-less-talented but more cohesive Pistons team.

1986 Bears
Return many of the key players from a Super Bowl championship team....and lose in their first playoff game.

2003 & 2004 Yankees
Had payrolls of close to $200 million yet never won it all. Lost in '03 to the small-market Marlins and blew a 3-0 series lead to the Red Sox in '04.

1994 Oilers
You would think that the choke job in Buffalo the year before would be motivation enough when the postseason arrived. Instead, they give up 21 4th quarter points at home and lose their playoff opener to Kansas City.

2005 Colts
This had to be the year, and with New England being plagued by injuries, it sure looked like it. Then Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy once again showed why they will never, ever win a championship.

 

in about four years...Alex Smith

 

Yes, and the Vikes had them down, at home. And the crowd was singing along with Will SMith's "Going to Miami" at about 150 decibels.

And how did that 14-2 record treat the Falcons in the Super Bowl?

The Vikes choked. In spectacular fashion. Even die-hard Vikings fans admit that.

 

Randall Cunningham . . . the Angel of Death.

 

Good call, Ben.

I am amazed the Lions fans -- as thick here this board as Royals fans -- have not mentioned Andre Ware.

75 touchdown passes in 27 college games.

Pro career ... yeah.

 

Well, whoopty-damn-doo. 

 

The late, great 5-foot-9 inside linebacker Sam Mills from tiny Montcllair State deserves perpetual memorialization as THE model of an anti-failure.

Just wanted that mentioned on this thread someplace amongst the lewzers.

 

I'd love to agree with this, but that team was overrated from the start.

 

They lost to another 14-2 team.

Let's just revise the original statement to read every team in the NFL other than Denver failed in 1998. That works.

 

Still, they lost to one of the other AFC favorites heading into the season (the Steelers) and the Colts were only close enough for Vanderjagt to choke the game away because of a piss-poor incomplete pass call on the ball Troy Polamalu intercepted in the fourth quarter.

 

Mike Vanderjagt [/hostilelooserColtsfangirl]

 

The 1976 Philadelphia 76ers
Julius Erving, George McGinnis, Doug Collins, Steve Mix, Darryl Dawkins, Joe Bryant, (before he was World) Lloyd Free.... Unbelieveable talent. Choked after going up 2-0 in the series against a refer-smoking allway studdering Bill Walton.